Development, Validation and Standardization of Tertiary Examination Behaviour Inventory: Diagnostic Instrument for Measuring Cheating Tendency in Educational Assessments

The research focused on development, validation and standardization of a diagnostic instrument called Tertiary Examination Behaviour Inventory (TEBI) for determining the tendency of students in tertiary institutions to participate in academic cheating. Anchored on the Modified Theory of Planned Behaviour (MTPB) and Item Response Theory (IRT), the table of test blue print covered the constructs of examination anxiety, examination ethics, study habits, and attitude towards cheating in examinations in one dimension and the phases (prior, during and after examinations) on the other dimension. Initial pilot study analysis of 50 items using test-retest reliability and factor analysis led to pruning down to 35 final items. The final sample size for validation of the TEBI was 1000 students drawn from higher institutions across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria and 3500 students for the standardization (construction of the national ‘norms'). The Conbach Alpha and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were used to determine the psychometric properties. Standardized Cronbach Alpha (α = .78) is an acceptable index indicating internal consistency, reliability and validity. Each of the 35 items yielded scaled means above 80 and each item's Cronbach Alpha is greater than .75. PCA yielded 13 factors from the 35 item TEBI. Those 13 factors contributed 62.73% variance in TEBI items. National ‘norms' are 84.19% and 82.82% for male and female students respectively. Thus, TEBI is reliable, valid and standardized for use as a diagnostic instrument for identifying students who have positive dispositions towards academic dishonesty which is an educational monster.